Browser View - Wasted Space (Next Up)

[Heckler 147]

Found out this morning that the server had auto updated itself again overnight... Not a fan of this as I then start finding changes that often seem to have been made that don't make sense. I see a change that was made in a previous build is then removed, or changed and made worse.

 

But that's just my view on things that I have no idea about, there may very well be good reasons for them that I'm not aware of.

 

So the latest change that messes with what I am visually/cosmetically used to showed up today... and I can show it in 3 pics... Unfortunately I don't have a handy pic of what it looked like before, but it was similar to Pic 3, but in windowed mode.

 

I browse my media on my office PC and 99% of the time my TV shows using the Next-Up view... In the past it has always, and I do mean ALWAYS. Shown 4 items across (as per pic 3) when the browser is in windowed mode. I always have my browser in windowed mode because I have a large monitor and full screen is a waste of space (see pic 1)

 

Now when I view next up, it only shows 3 items across, the window and text size is exactly the same (default 100%) as it always has been. If I expand the window width, nothing happens except the wasted space on the screen gets larger (see pic 2)

 

Even when you expand the window to entirely fill the screen res, you still only get three items showing, and a much larger amount of wasted space.

 

It only goes to four items across when you maximise the browser out of a window, and even then there is a huge amount of wasted space either side.

 

No idea if this is intentional, a bug or an errant bit of code that slipped through with all the different test builds and so forth I know you guys are working on all the time... But I prefered it the old way when I had 4 items across in windowed mode.

 

Thanks

 

 

PIC 1

The image above is the standard window size that I have open all the time. In the previous version, it would show 4 items per row... Now it only shows 3. TXT size is standard and the window is roughly 3/4 of the screen res (1920x1080)

 

 

PIC 2

In this pic, I stretch the screen width to make it as wide as possible... but without maximising the window... So it's as large as the entire screen without actually being maximised. As you can see, it still retains 3 across and simply wastes the space either side... Here you could easily have at least 5 items.

 

PIC 3

In this pic, I have maximised the window and it jumps to 4 across, but still wastes a lot of space either side. Again there is room for at least 5, maybe even 6 across.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Heckler

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

It is an intentional design choice from what I was told. Not a fan of the superfluous whitespace myself.

[markshu 7]

Neither am I.  I'd much rather the content automatically flow and display as much on each line as possible with just a *little* white space for framing and nav elements.

[nydude25 11]

Found out this morning that the server had auto updated itself again overnight... Not a fan of this as I then start finding changes that often seem to have been made that don't make sense. I see a change that was made in a previous build is then removed, or changed and made worse.

 

Just turn off the auto update feature and manually update if/when you feel a need to do so.

[Heckler 147]

Just turn off the auto update feature and manually update if/when you feel a need to do so.

 

i did this shortly after I posted... 

[A8HTPC 38]

There needs to be more custimzed settings. User selects how many to show n space betweeb them n text size.

[ebr 14904]

There needs to be more custimzed settings. User selects how many to show n space betweeb them n text size.

 

Hard-core tweakers always want more options but that is actually rarely the right answer.  A huge percentage of users never change the options and lots of options just make everything look more complex and intimidate the average user (yes, even our average user).

[Heckler 147]

@@ebr I'm not asking for there to be an option to change it, I'm asking for it to be more intuitive about how many it displays on a line. Before this update, in windowed mode it would display 4 across, now it will only display 3 regardless of how wide the window is, adjusting the text size makes no difference to it until you get down to 50% and then it jumps to 4 across, but it's still stuck centrally and by this time at 50% is unreadable anyway... I just checked as an example to see what it would do... and if you reduce it further to 33%, it jumps back to 3 across.

 

It seems that there was something in the code before that managed this behavior much better than it does now, but I am not a coder... so I couldn't tell you what or suggest a solution. But I'm assuming there are ways of coding to allow the number of items across the width to adjust according to the size of the screen itself... as if you maximise the window, it does indeed jump to 4 across... but alas there is still an acre of space each side going to waste... I'm suggesting that the window auto adjust to ensue that this space is filled rather than left empty.

 

I hope that clarifies what my request is about.

 

Cheers

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

The viewable window in the page was given a smaller width and the tiles were made larger. This results in smaller rows. 

[ebr 14904]

This was a conscious design decision I'm pretty sure to avoid information overload on that screen.  So it is behaving differently on purpose.

 

Heckler - you did specifically ask for "more customized settings" so that's why interpreted it as a request for another option.

[A8HTPC 38]

Hard-core tweakers always want more options but that is actually rarely the right answer. A huge percentage of users never change the options and lots of options just make everything look more complex and intimidate the average user (yes, even our average user).

Then have an advanced check box or button that unhides more options. This advanced idea works in plex and jriver. Keeps the general menus neat

[Heckler 147]

This was a conscious design decision I'm pretty sure to avoid information overload on that screen.  So it is behaving differently on purpose.

 

Heckler - you did specifically ask for "more customized settings" so that's why interpreted it as a request for another option.

 

@@ebr -  Having read all of my comments in this thread again... I can't find anything that by me that is asking for more customisation settings at all, others have but not myself.

 

If there was a good reason (as I said there may be) for doing it, then that's the answer I'll have to accept. I said it's a personal thing that I liked visually/cosmetically and I don't like the new way it looks because it wastes so much space. I don't see it as overloading the user with info because there are other pages with a hundred times more info and people can browse those perfectly well I assume as I haven't seen any posts asking for those to be reduced.

 

But that's my preference and we can disagree on things... at the end of the day, I'm not the one making the decisions and I will have to put up with the change. But it doesn't hurt to point out things that I'm not fond of.  

[AdrianW 1052]

I have to agree with Heckler here, the web home page looks like it's been designed for a 1280 x 1024 resolution monitor. On my 2560 x 1440 screen it's wasting a good 50% of the width.

 

At least the other views are using the full width. But that makes the UI a little inconsistent - personally I think all the views should fill the available space with content. 

[ebr 14904]

Very sorry, Heckler.  It was another user who requested the options and I responded to that.  Then you responded directly to my response and I got confused  .  Apologies.

[Heckler 147]

The viewable window in the page was given a smaller width and the tiles were made larger. This results in smaller rows. 

 

So why does it only switch to 4 across when you maximise/full screen the window (Chrome browser, 1920x1080) but not when you adjust it to manually fill the screen? Both windows are basically the same size give or take a couple of pixels width/height.

[Heckler 147]

OK @@ebr & @  I have done some more investigating and here's a visual breakdown of what happens... and why I don't understand the reasons given for the change.

 

Here's the standard full sized windowed mode as close to 1920x1080 as it is possible to get.

 

As you can see, loads of space either side and the slightly larger tiles you mentioned before.

 

Now we reduce the width a little

 

As you can see nothing changes, reduced wasted space but the tiles remain the same size... this is currently about 3/4 screen width.

 

Reduced a little more.

 

Now here we reduce the screen to roughly half screen width.and suddenly we get a slight reduction in the size of the tiles... So there's is some auto adjustment already built into the code here that allows this.

 

Reduce width a little more.

 

Same tile size, reduced wasted space...

 

Reduce again

 

Now it switches to 2 tiles across, we're about a third of the screen width by this point.

 

One more reduction

 

OK... this is now a little bizarre... it's reduced the tile size again and switched back to 3 tiles across... you can go further and it drops to 2 tiles across and so forth.

 

Now I know this is kinda taking it to the extreme and no one is likely to have a browser window open that narrow... But the point I am trying to make is this.

 

What I am suggesting is obviously (it seems to me) already built into the code, and therefore (to me it seems) would be easy to adjust. It already scales according to the screen size and has simply been capped (it seems to me) for some reason.

 

All I'm suggesting is this cap be adjusted to scale more appropriately within the windowed mode

 

In regards to the overload of information mentioned earlier... My answer is this... if these screenshots are deemed perfectly fine, why cap the amount of info on the other screen?

 

I'm not trying to be snotty here or criticise you guys, because you do a fantastic job... I am actually trying to suggest something that A: I would fine so much more appealing visually  & B: Hope that others would too.  

[techywarrior 688]

You have to remember a couple of things. First, this is a webpage. It's limited by the browser, CSS, and what can be written with JavaScript. The second thing is that the web client is designed to work on any device from your phone (with a very small window) to an average desktop browser window.

 

Now, being a web page, the styling is controlled with CSS. CSS allows media queries now (CSS3) so adjustments can be made based on resolution. This allows a web page to adjust itself based on the size of the screen it is on. These adjustments need to be made based on specific widths. So you can set it so that the images adjust in size when the window goes to 800px wide (or whatever) and then again at 400px etc.

 

This is way better then in the past when you would basically have completely different websites for mobile vs desktop or just not be usable on a small device. There are still limitations and complexities with this though. First, break points for the image sizes need to be chosen that will work for most devices. This is fairly easy with many phones and tablets having similar screen sizes but is a little tougher when you consider that someone can make their desktop window a large range of sizes.

 

Now, they could make it so that the images fill all the space minus X amount for margins but when you make the window very wide it does start to look busy. Additional break points could be set in the CSS but that adds more testing every time styling changes are made (and most people aren't using browser window at those sizes). Also, depending on the page, the styling could be shared between other pages as well.

 

I think the ultimate solution you are looking for is actually something that has been discussed in the past and I believe is still on the list of things to do. And that is theming for the web client. Once that is implemented it will allow you to override CSS rules and possibly and possibly add some JavaScript.

 

I don't know where this falls in the list of priorities tho.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

So why does it only switch to 4 across when you maximise/full screen the window (Chrome browser, 1920x1080) but not when you adjust it to manually fill the screen? Both windows are basically the same size give or take a couple of pixels width/height.

It is a Responsive Mobile First design. There are specific breakpoints in the software that controls the layout. These are set in the CSS or Cascading Style Sheets. They are triggered by the browser at specific resolutions. Can't really say why your browser treats Maximized and "Almost Maximized" differently. Overall though it isn't an exact science. There really isn't thing that allows pixels by pixel layout on the Web. You can get very close but there are a lot of variables between browsers, rendering engines and operating systems.

[Heckler 147]

I see your point @@techywarrior and I understand some of the reasons. Theming sounds like an interesting idea, I remember when I used to run website forums using phpbb and trying to make or even customise themes... the headaches that caused me and the amount of time I wasted trying to get stuff to work was huge.

 

Perhaps I'm just not cut out to write/edit/modify code.  

[techywarrior 688]

I see your point @@techywarrior and I understand some of the reasons. Theming sounds like an interesting idea, I remember when I used to run website forums using phpbb and trying to make or even customise themes... the headaches that caused me and the amount of time I wasted trying to get stuff to work was huge.

 

Perhaps I'm just not cut out to write/edit/modify code.  

 

Haha, perhaps not then. But I would imagine if/when theming does come other people will make some themes available that work better for your particular use case.

[ebr 14904]

Again, this isn't about how easy or hard it is or would be to use more space in that layout.  Reducing the tiles and increasing the "dead" space on that front page was a design decision that was made on purpose. You have voiced your opinion that you don't like that design and that's fine but that's all we're talking about here.

 

I'm not even necessarily defending that decision.  I'm just pointing out that this was done on purpose.

[AdrianW 1052]

You have to remember a couple of things. First, this is a webpage. It's limited by the browser, CSS, and what can be written with JavaScript. The second thing is that the web client is designed to work on any device from your phone (with a very small window) to an average desktop browser window.

 

Good points - but all the other views (e.g. Shows, Movies, etc) do fill up the available space. e.g. I get eight TV show thumbs across my screen when viewing "Shows" or "Episodes".

[nydude25 11]

Again, this isn't about how easy or hard it is or would be to use more space in that layout.  Reducing the tiles and increasing the "dead" space on that front page was a design decision that was made on purpose. You have voiced your opinion that you don't like that design and that's fine but that's all we're talking about here.

 

I'm not even necessarily defending that decision.  I'm just pointing out that this was done on purpose.

 

Maybe suggesting that people not update from a version of MB that they are happy with too quickly would be a good idea. If the changes in a newer version have a negative effect on your use of MB, then don't allow your system to update to that version.

 

Unless you need a bug fix or change that is incorporated in a newer version, stick with what is working for you. The MB3 project is all about customizing experiences for users, so lock out updates on your system once you've got it set just how you want it.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Maybe suggesting that people not update from a version of MB that they are happy with too quickly would be a good idea. If the changes in a newer version have a negative effect on your use of MB, then don't allow your system to update to that version.

 

Unless you need a bug fix or change that is incorporated in a newer version, stick with what is working for you. The MB3 project is all about customizing experiences for users, so lock out updates on your system once you've got it set just how you want it.

Unfortunately, if you don't update regularly than clients stop working and you lose out on important feature and security updates. The biggest issue here is the change isn't consistent across the application and if they didn't want people to be overwhelmed with information, that should be carried across to other clients. The client apps are great examples of overwhelming people with information.

 

I appreciate the feature but this layout change seems to be a case of change for the sake of change without actually providing any benefit. Just makes the system less useful and not as fun to work with.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Wayne Luke

[Heckler 147]

Again, this isn't about how easy or hard it is or would be to use more space in that layout.  Reducing the tiles and increasing the "dead" space on that front page was a design decision that was made on purpose. You have voiced your opinion that you don't like that design and that's fine but that's all we're talking about here.

 

I'm not even necessarily defending that decision.  I'm just pointing out that this was done on purpose.

 

I did ask in the first post if it was an intentional change or a bug. So I understand if some of the team thought it was the y way to go. It's never going to be possible to please everyone.

 

From a purely logical perspective, to me it makes the layout throughout the browser inconsistent at a time when I and probably others were used to a higher level of consistency.

 

But as said, it's not my decision, I'm just expressing my view that I preferred it the old way and would be happy to see it changed back.  

 

If it doesn't... I'm not going to get upset or lose sleep about it... it's a minor cosmetic/visual difference that doesn't impact my use of that page.